


Tempo

by bulfinch



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Multi, post-reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 16:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulfinch/pseuds/bulfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had not been a sudden shift from fear to wonder for Arthur. He needs time, Merlin would think. Just give him time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempo

It had not been a sudden shift from fear to wonder for Arthur. _He needs time,_ Merlin would think. _Just give him time_.

And so despite his urge to conjure dragons out of flames and smoke and imagination, to shape clouds into love scenes and weave blades of grass into tapestries, testaments of his adoration, all for Arthur, he held back. Took tiny, careful steps, coaxing Arthur closer to his magic.

 

On that first night together, the one that followed close on the heels of the night he had poured out his secrets to Arthur, his magic, his heart, in one short, terrifying jumble of words, he had slipped quietly, nervously into Arthur’s chambers.

Arthur, true to his word, was waiting. Hovering near the fire, trying, it seemed, to find all the bravado that had fled with the daylight hours. Fled form the prospect, the anticipation, of bringing Merlin into his bed. He poured the wine, carefully, cautiously, then poured the water, teasing with a half smile that he knew what it did to Merlin, and admitting with an almost blush that “Tonight... I-I want you to remember. Tonight...”

Merlin was smiling as he took the wine and set it aside. He cleared his throat of the coos and murmured words of sweetness that threatened to escape it and stood straight “I have a present for you”. He held his head a little higher, pushed up his sleeves, shook out his arms and hands, rubbed his palms together, took a breath like Arthur before a speech and, as he had with Freya, cupped his hands and spoke a spell into them. Pretended to ignore the flash of uncertainty, of fear, that crossed Arthur’s eyes. He conjured, it seemed to Arthur and his amazement, a rose out of nothing.

It was only a long time after, years in fact, when Arthur was brushing back the hair from Merlin’s face, the silver from his temples, with an almost unconscious affection, that he admitted, shyly, sheepishly, that he had not. That he had only brought it from its hiding place in his pocket, and into his hands.

 

Arthur had settled into his bath under Merlin’s hungry eyes when next he had gathered enough courage. “Is it warm enough?” he murmured, hoarsely, into Arthur’s ear. And before he could stop himself, if he could have stopped himself at all, his fingers were sliding into the barely-warm water, whispering over Arthur’s shoulders, his chest, his belly, his thighs and he was whispering different words then, delicious heat trailing from his fingers.

And Arthur’s incessant shivers, Merlin knew, had precious little to do with cold.

 

Arthur was patient at first, glad even, for all these little wonders, these careful forays into the fantastic. Weeks had gone by, weeks of Merlin’s small miracles, conjured in quiet moments, over meals, before sleeps, little accidental ones amidst breathless pleas for “more”.

Quickly, Arthur’s instinct to fear had turned to curiosity. And now, now, it was morphing into something more. Something, though it was not entirely unlike fear, that held far more promise. Something just as primal and thrilling as terror, it made Arthur’s heart hammer, but was laced also with the sweet ache of tenderness, longing, dearness.    

Curiosity, it seemed, had turned to craving. A burning hunger to see the blue of Merlin’s eyes be eaten by gold and his voice grow low to rumble in Arthur’s heart like the trembling of the forest in a storm. To feel Merlin’s eerie energy slide over Arthur’s willing, pleading, skin and curl like heat in the pit of his stomach.

But Arthur held back. For Merlin’s sake he did not beg or demand, or startle him out of this careful, timid dance they had weaved together into the measured steps of their days and the vibrant turns and leaps of their nights. _He needs time_ Arthur would think. _Just give him time_.

 

And he used that time, crafted it to coax his council members. Used the memories of all those little miracles and the fear that had mingled with Merlin’s stammering confession, making Arthur’s heart ache to see that he could cause such a thing in Merlin, to ground himself in his own certainty. All those little testaments to Merlin’s love had made him stubborn, planted in him an unwavering conviction of rightness. No more black smoke hovering like an accusation of injustice over white castle turrets.

But Arthur had only just learned to be king. To be patient and pensive and, sometimes, penitent. He had always been a warrior. And, while he was faced with the crinkled foreheads and the cataract-glazed stares of his councillors, patience was possible, slowness, sureness, steadiness were needed. What he felt tangled in his sheets and Merlin’s limbs was a different matter all together.

What he felt cradled in desire, cocooned in pleasure and feeling Merlin’s heart hammer against his skin had no time for _Time_. No patience for _patience_. That had its own tempo and it called Arthur to action like a battle cry.

 

But Merlin had always been cautious. Had learned since infancy to wait and linger on possibilities. To feed off somedays and one days and steel himself against the urge to abandon _carefuls_ and _not yets_ in favour of a shorter, more liberated life. To loose himself in moments, in the precious, fragile beauty of an instant.

So Merlin, a long suffering practitioner of patience, remained oblivious to the hunger stirring in Arthur’s gut.

 

But it was not altogether easy. Not simple, not human, to ignore want and instinct until it builds like a fever in your brain. Until it aches like exhaustion in your “patient” limbs. It was, as far as Merlin was concerned, so very akin to starvation.

So when it finally broke loose, torn by ecstasy out of Arthur’s pleasure-swollen lips, a hissed plea, a choked demand, “Show me, Merlin. _Show me_ ”, betwixt one stuttering breath and the next, Merlin lost himself at last.


End file.
